There has been a fair amount of indignation directed towards Amazon over the last couple of days.
Amazon deleted Norwegian IT Consultant Linn Nygaard’s Amazon account and removed access to the Kindle books she had purchased.
Martin Bekkelund blogged how Amazon closed her account and wiped her Kindle. It offered no explanation as to why it had done so.
Although it smacks of poor customer service, Amazon is completely within its rights to do this. Its terms of service state:
All content included in or made available through any Amazon Service, such as text, graphics, logos, button icons, images, audio clips, digital downloads, and data compilations is the property of Amazon or its content suppliers and protected by United States and international copyright laws.
All the books on your Kindle are not yours. They belong to Amazon. All that cash you have paid was simply to access these books on your Kindle. You have not paid to own the books. If you want to own books, pay for physical printed books and get Amazon to send them to you by post.
ZDNet – Why Amazon is within its rights to remove access to your Kindle books
